Monday, 24 August 2009

Geometric designs

Being a maths teacher I am always drawn towards geometric patterns.I've used this idea with some classes at school for different purposes, but I thought I would try it out with the boys and see what they could come up with.

I gave them an A5 piece of white paper with a border already drawn in. They then had to draw several straight lines (with a ruler) joining any two sides together. My 3 year old needed quite a lot of help with drawing his lines, but the almost 5 year old just needed me to hold the ruler steady for him.

Once the lines were drawn in with black felt pen, they then had to colour in the shapes created in anyway they wanted to. I encouraged them to use different colours and different types of colouring equipment (pencil crayons, wax crayons, oil pastels etc) but they generally made their own decisions, and this is what they did.

The one at the bottom is by my 3 year old - he always has a very clear idea about what he wants to do and there is no swaying him (not necessarily a bad thing - but he can be so stubborn). He loves to cut, stick, tear, smudge, layer colours on top of each other, scratch at surfaces and basically experiment in whatever way occurs to him at the time. I love this about him and hope he always has this side to his personality.

By the way, we have a set of these pencils and they are absolutely fab - gorgeous vibrant colours and shaped to make it easier for small hands. Expensive but worth it.